‘Beautiful Modeler': Multi-Touch Virtual 3D Clay for iPad

“Beautiful Modeler” is a pair of applications that lets you sculpt virtual modeling-clay with your fingers, thanks to the iPad’s multi-touch capabilities.

The iPad itself is the controller, and displays nothing but five dots that represent your fingertips. A companion app, running on a nearby Mac on the same Wi-Fi network, shows the actual model on-screen. By moving your fingers around, you can squish and shape the malleable chunk of virtual Play Doh in real time, pushing and pulling it until you have the shape you want. You can also turn and flip the on-screen object by turning and flipping the iPad, thanks to its accelerometers. This is the reason the lump is shown elsewhere, and not on the iPad’s own display – it’s hard to see the screen when it is facing away from you.

The apps, from Karl D.D. Willis, will output the results in Standard Template Library (STL) format and can be passed direct to a 3D printer to turn your virtual object into a real one. You can even choose to output a negative version of your shape. In the video, Willis uses this to make a lamp. In reality, you could print a negative mold and then cast your object in any material you like.

If you fancy taking a crack at this cyber-pottery, you can grab the source code from Willis project page and compile it yourself. You’ll need an iOS developer account to actually load it onto your iPad, but if you’re nerdy enough to have a 3D printer around, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?